Seeing your board and your photos, I think you're going to convince me to go for a Custom Smik (I'm in contact with Smik Europe....)

What is your size??? You weigh 85/90 kg according to what you wrote above and your board is 5'10 x 21' and 85 liters!?
What level of practice do you have and what type of conditions do you intend this Smik for (light wind, all round), is it your only board or do you have several boards for different conditions??

Damn!! That's a beautiful board.

Tow boogie on a mates 5 2 x 18 x 35l. Best prone board I have ever tried. Construction is next level compared to Amos or JS. Rode so well. Order in

Awesome review, thank you
im picking up my 6' 85l Breeze next Friday (in Melbourne) and bringing it home to Sydney.
I'm probably tipping around 88kg with rubber wear, PFD, soft helmet etcI've been riding my STOKR DW board 7'6" @ 115 litres (same 19 1/2" width) exclusively since I got it 3 months ago in all conditions and it is by far the best board I've owned to date, so I'm really looking forward to the 6' Breeze version

DukeSilver said..
Well my Smik Stok'R Breeze turned up last week and to date, I've had 3 sessions on it. I got the 6' 85L model and I'm probably around 84kg with wetsuit and impact vest / helmet. This is my second board having been on my current 109L Suns Wing Foil board for about 2 years. Up to now, I've not ridden a lower volume board.

The Stok'R Breeze is a beautiful looking board. Very light and well made. I was struck by how tiny it seemed in comparison to my flat nosed, wide barge.

There was a moderate 12-15kt breeze blowing at my local on delivery day so I decided to give it it's maiden voyage. To say the first 30 minutes were humbling would be a massive understatement. I got about 6 months worth of swearing off my chest in that half hour of struggle. It felt like kneeling on one of those playground horses on the single spring. When I wasn't sliding off the nose or tail, I was tipping off the side. I had the sinking feeling that I had made a huge mistake. I had been looking forward to getting this board for months, anticipating the huge improvement it would make to my winging experience, and now it was betraying me, and I was on the fast train back to Kooksville.

Bare feet and a short wetsuit were compounding my misery. The deck grip had the properties of a Parmesan cheese grater on my knees and feet, the latter of which are still healing. But, after 30 or 40 minutes of frustration, I had come up with a strategy to get to my knees using the wing as support and once I had enough wind, managed to get to my feet. A few pumps and I was up to speed very efficiently, and was up and away.

Once flying, all the worry about my purchase went away. Despite being 2 inches longer than my other board, It felt much smaller, lighter and more nimble. I managed a foot swap to toe side and gybe to heel side, then a gybe to toe side but fell off attempting to swap back to heel after the gybe. From there, the wind dropped so, tired and bleeding, I schlogged back to shore, happy I had done what - at the start of the session - I thought was improbable, stand up and get on foil. My next two sessions have gone a lot more successfully (and less painfully with the addition of booties and a steamer), and I have the belief riding this board will soon become second nature to me.

All in all, very happy with this board. The ease of take off speed that this narrow design provides is quite amazing. Once riding, it feels much smaller than it's 6 foot length due to the mid stance you adopt and the narrow, low volume design of the nose. It feels and looks like a very well made board and is very competitively priced compared to other similar boards. No regrets at all and would highly recommend if you are in the market for this style of board.

4 words: Stink bug, knee pads..... your welcome.

gorgesailor said..

DukeSilver said..
Well my Smik Stok'R Breeze turned up last week and to date, I've had 3 sessions on it. I got the 6' 85L model and I'm probably around 84kg with wetsuit and impact vest / helmet. This is my second board having been on my current 109L Suns Wing Foil board for about 2 years. Up to now, I've not ridden a lower volume board.

The Stok'R Breeze is a beautiful looking board. Very light and well made. I was struck by how tiny it seemed in comparison to my flat nosed, wide barge.

There was a moderate 12-15kt breeze blowing at my local on delivery day so I decided to give it it's maiden voyage. To say the first 30 minutes were humbling would be a massive understatement. I got about 6 months worth of swearing off my chest in that half hour of struggle. It felt like kneeling on one of those playground horses on the single spring. When I wasn't sliding off the nose or tail, I was tipping off the side. I had the sinking feeling that I had made a huge mistake. I had been looking forward to getting this board for months, anticipating the huge improvement it would make to my winging experience, and now it was betraying me, and I was on the fast train back to Kooksville.

Bare feet and a short wetsuit were compounding my misery. The deck grip had the properties of a Parmesan cheese grater on my knees and feet, the latter of which are still healing. But, after 30 or 40 minutes of frustration, I had come up with a strategy to get to my knees using the wing as support and once I had enough wind, managed to get to my feet. A few pumps and I was up to speed very efficiently, and was up and away.

Once flying, all the worry about my purchase went away. Despite being 2 inches longer than my other board, It felt much smaller, lighter and more nimble. I managed a foot swap to toe side and gybe to heel side, then a gybe to toe side but fell off attempting to swap back to heel after the gybe. From there, the wind dropped so, tired and bleeding, I schlogged back to shore, happy I had done what - at the start of the session - I thought was improbable, stand up and get on foil. My next two sessions have gone a lot more successfully (and less painfully with the addition of booties and a steamer), and I have the belief riding this board will soon become second nature to me.

All in all, very happy with this board. The ease of take off speed that this narrow design provides is quite amazing. Once riding, it feels much smaller than it's 6 foot length due to the mid stance you adopt and the narrow, low volume design of the nose. It feels and looks like a very well made board and is very competitively priced compared to other similar boards. No regrets at all and would highly recommend if you are in the market for this style of board.

4 words: Stink bug, knee pads..... your welcome.

Ha ha, yep. Will have to learn the Stink Bug for sure. I'll just resign myself to always wearing a full length wetsuit.

I ended up setting the mast around half way along the track box. Feels way less twitchy and front foot aligns with the strap inserts. Four sessions in and starting to really enjoy the Stokr.

Picked up my used 6' @ 85l Stokr Breeze last weekend and tried it out during the week
No wind in the morning so for my 1st session I mounted my Manta TakeOff (FoilDrive Gen2 style assist) and went out in small beach break waves. To cut the story short, board got up very very easily, connection was great with controller held against the nose of the board, however..I had to practically ride Hang 10 style with both feet close together and my front foot well forward of the deck pad. Even with my mast and battery unit as far back in the tracks as possible the board was doing wheelies every time I got on foil. So not really rideable...mmmm
That afternoon the wind was on, so I setup with my 90cm mast and my "new to me" front foil (GoFoil RS1000). I have Konrad ClickNut adjustable mast bolts so I set the mast back in the tracks. Board gets up and flying easily but I would then have to shift really far forward on the board to bring the nose down and try to get the board to fly level. My GoFoil V2 mast has 2 sets of mounting holes to provide further rear (or forward) offset so I flipped the board over and remounted my mast as far back as possible using the offset hole spacing. A minor improvement as the board was now flying level, but I was still really far forward on the board with my front foot only a foot or so back from the tip of the nose. The previous owner of the board had added some deck grip beyond the factory grip so they must have had a similar experience?Regardless of the really weird position on the board, I had a great session and the standout takeaways for me were how well the board (combined with the RS1000) turned, I was cranking my hardest, tightest, most laid over turns that I've done to date (so close in feeling to frontside and backside snowboard carves) and how the pump onto foil technique is quite different to the other boards I've had (mainly Kalama E3s). I found that I needed to stand back on the board and sink the tail otherwise I would plow the nose underwater. Then as the wind pressure in the handwing increased I pumped the tail of the board, using the tail volume to bounce the board up and onto foil, which is basically the opposite technique that I've previously used where i would "bounce" the nose of the board to generate the lift/water release. My conclusion is that my GoFoil setup doesn't work with the track placement (first board where I've experienced this) so after speaking to Scotty at SMIK I've ordered my first custom board with dims of 6'1" x 19 1/2" @ 85l with the tracks set much further back. No strap mounts, but a topside handle and the awesome longitudinal corduroy deck grip !
In the interim I'll see if I can borrow an earlier gen GoFoil mast which has the front foil closer to the mast than my Gen 2 masts and I'll try running my smallest tail to see if that can reduce some lift and get my stance back on the board a bit more?

The thongs (jandals or flip flops for non Australians) show my approximate foot position on foil, so my 6' board feels like a 4' board with 1 foot of board in front and a ton of unused real estate behind :-)

Ugly said..
Been riding this board since April using the Armstrong set up.
Rear of mast base is know 40mm from the rear of the mast tracks.
Ive had the mast racks in 4 different positions and the board always rode well and was flying level. only changes position to make take of quicker.
Feet positon is 3 inches back from front of main pad and 3 inches from the rear of the front pad.
This changes a bit with supper strong wind and ive used this in any wind conditions.
One board Quiver.
So totaly astonished as to where you ride on the board, never ridden axis.

So the mast track far enough even for Armstrong? How much do you weigh?

Update:

2 more sessions on the 6' Stokr Breeze in decent wind. I only recently acquired a 10.5" tail
(the smallest tail in the current GoFoil range) so I fitted that in combo with my also new to me RS1000. That's Better !
The smaller tail reduced the lift so now I could stand a bit further back, my front foot is now just at the front edge of the main deckpad but still a few inches forward of the footstrap holes (I don't use footstraps, so doesn't really matter at this stage). I'm much more centred on the board and not riding Hang10 style so I can live with this setup until my custom SMIK Breeze with more rearward track placement arrives in the New Year. The 10.5" tail has also lifted my "snowboarding on water" game and it's so much fun to crank relentless S turns, laying the board over until the wing tips breach. Today I did 1/2 the session on the RS1000 then came in and swapped for the RS850 to see if that wing combined with the 10.5" tail had my feet back in the main deckpad. Sure did, and the small tail also brought the 850 to life with nice hard turns combined with great glide. This board with the tracks too far forward for my GoFoil gear has forced me to adapt and learn to ride smaller foil/stab combos, which has given me another level of stoke in this endless foil journey.

Very happy with the board after a month
Thanks to Scotty and Monty for the pics.

Orange is good

cameron I'm sure you have thought of this too, but as a gofoil rider who also puts his mast right at the back (gong lethal) I have had terrific results using a 1.5mm base plate shim in forward or reverse config depending on wind and my hand wing, I get either lots of lift or more speed and glide (for the same track position), I would be interested to see if you tried that out, lovely board .

[URL=.html] [/URL]
[URL=.html] [/URL]
[URL=.html] [/URL][URL=.html] [/URL][URL=.html] [/URL][URL=.html] [/URL]

Nice looking board. Looks like it would be good for para-wing too. I like the colour and the decal.

I'm loving my Breeze more and more with each session. Smik seem to make really solid boards too, despite their lightness. I've dropped hard handles of my North Nova onto my deck numerous times during sessions and not a mark so far.